One of the very best things on television right now. More than just a mindless thing to distract you; a reminder than some writers out there genuinely know what they're doing, know their way around a joke and can keep it fresh.
It's amazing how low one's standard for comedy can get when you just want something to watch but here is some real professionalism and the story telling isn't half bad either.
If you like that Family Guy-esque tit-for-tat humor in which people say absurd things but they follow through on it as if they had workshopped it all day, then this will please you.
Real laugh out loud moments are there and it's not just shock humor; they are real jokes.
But you also have the characters: this vision of an archetypal family, not idealized but still deeply empathetic with its gentle mom character who can't say a word against anyone without feeling bad and her toxic masculine husband that really got under my skin as a man who might have horrific things to say about gays and women but if a fragile and damaged product of his upbringing.
My main negative is Blair. She is so the worst character and the worst thing in this show. She needs to be there but I hope the writers make her better for season 2. Progressive politics are not a substitute for a personality now matter how admirable the sentiments are. She is smug and sanctimonious, apparently desperate to talk down to people at the expense of furthering the causes she claims to believe in.
The politics talk can be hard to take but the story telling is solid: Macfarlane seems to really want to prove to people than he can do more than the semi-sketch comedy of FG and really spin a narrative. Chekhov gun applies here in a spontaneous way, sometimes planting ideas in one episode that comes to fruition in another.
And the episodes respect their audience. They don't end in these cliche "ha-ha you failed loser" kind of way. You'll see what I mean.
As always with these kinds of shows, the weakest jokes are ironic allusions to the future but never mind.
It's amazing how low one's standard for comedy can get when you just want something to watch but here is some real professionalism and the story telling isn't half bad either.
If you like that Family Guy-esque tit-for-tat humor in which people say absurd things but they follow through on it as if they had workshopped it all day, then this will please you.
Real laugh out loud moments are there and it's not just shock humor; they are real jokes.
But you also have the characters: this vision of an archetypal family, not idealized but still deeply empathetic with its gentle mom character who can't say a word against anyone without feeling bad and her toxic masculine husband that really got under my skin as a man who might have horrific things to say about gays and women but if a fragile and damaged product of his upbringing.
My main negative is Blair. She is so the worst character and the worst thing in this show. She needs to be there but I hope the writers make her better for season 2. Progressive politics are not a substitute for a personality now matter how admirable the sentiments are. She is smug and sanctimonious, apparently desperate to talk down to people at the expense of furthering the causes she claims to believe in.
The politics talk can be hard to take but the story telling is solid: Macfarlane seems to really want to prove to people than he can do more than the semi-sketch comedy of FG and really spin a narrative. Chekhov gun applies here in a spontaneous way, sometimes planting ideas in one episode that comes to fruition in another.
And the episodes respect their audience. They don't end in these cliche "ha-ha you failed loser" kind of way. You'll see what I mean.
As always with these kinds of shows, the weakest jokes are ironic allusions to the future but never mind.